Blake Hampton

I knew Charlie Rose was great interviewer, but I never knew about his website. It is incredible: https://charlierose.com/ I recommend taking a look at it.

You don't even know the half of it

Change, you must be the fastest typer in the world.

Trump and the American people are trapped in a dangerous, negative feedback loop with one another. Throughout his life, Trump's entire mission has been to put his name and likeness wherever possible, through any means available. We are talking about a man who, now as president, receives a yearly document detailing how many times his name has been used on TikTok. He must be talked about, shown on TV, and embedded in the brains of everyone around the world incessantly. It is his drive. How does he accomplish this? Through increasing amounts of chaos of course. And at the same time, the American people are increasingly tuning out as the chaos Trump generates begins to scare them. They tune out more and more, which, in turn, causes Trump to push ever harder in his never-ending mission of capturing the minds and thoughts of everyone. This feedback loop will not end until Trump is either out of office or dead, and will likely only increase in its ferocity. I would also like to say that I do not respect the views, opinions, or logic of Trump supporters. It's always funny for me seeing your input because it only ever reminds me of how worthless it is. You are the ones who enabled the dangerous feedback loop I described up above, after all. But this is not to say that you are bad people outside of those beliefs. My dad is one of the biggest Trumpers there ever was. I love that man so much it is indescribable. But I also realize that he is a racist who is highly ignorant when it comes to policy, markets, economics, anything really of macro substance. He is a tribal-thinking ideologue who has fallen in line behind a mass manipulator, as I believe many on this board have as well.

But I will not deny that a lot of these problems have been building underneath the surface for quite some time. Our current state with Trump is simply a reflection of just how bad those problems have become. We should feel shame for the things Trump is doing. Yet when I look around all I can find is apathy.

I feel like United States is currently in a mania. It seems like irrational thinking is pervasive everywhere, most of all in our current administration. What a shame. America should be better than this.

Not "many people", just the Trumpers.

I spent nearly my entire childhood growing up with older people. My parents ran into their own set of problems very early in my life, and I subsequently moved in with and became adopted by my grandparents. I lived with them until I was about 16 years old, experienced some events that made me want to live somewhere else, moved in with my dad for about a year or so, and then actually came back to live with my great-grandma. Now that was an interesting experience. Under the age of 20, I probably spent 18 to 19 of those years living with grandparents. Where am I going with this? If there is one thing that I've learned having spent so much time living with older people, it's that change does not come easily to them, and oftentimes it's goddamn near impossible. For better or for worse, the vast majority of older adults are largely stuck in their ways. The same of course applies to our now 80-year-old president. I see him as the worst combination of Buffett's trifecta that you mentioned: he is one of the most incompetent people I have ever seen, he is corrupt to the core, and though it seems he's falling asleep quite a bit here lately, I would say he is boundless with energy. Now that is a man who is dangerous, especially so as the president of the United States of America. I was reading a book late last night that talked about the events that took place during the Pandemic and shortly thereafter. It was still somehow shocking to me how Trump acted during that period, and just how erratic his actions were given the circumstances. It dawned on me that this is a man who has decided his character. He is who he is. There is not a scenario where Trump is going to have some epiphany where he suddenly wants to do good by the American people. Trump will engineer chaos; you can count on it. He will not change.

Abraham Lincoln, incidentally the first ever Republican, was a voracious reader. He had less than one year of formal education before reaching the age of 18. Most of what that great man knew came from a book. Of course some of our favorite heroes here, being both Buffett and Munger, essentially devoted their entire lives to reading. Has Donald Trump read a single book in his whole life? The same man who is making unilateral, world defining decisions near daily, has he ever read one book? One? Newspapers? Financial statements, periodicals, literally anything that would give him the knowledge required to make a good decision? Anything? Maybe he read The Cat in the Hat.

The following chart is from the Consumer Expenditure Survey. This survey is used to create the basket for measuring CPI, which is interesting: Look at what comes in dead last as a share of household expenditures: reading. The average household spends six times more on tobacco products and alcohol than on reading. Nothing better in my mind explains the advent of Trump.

One of these times, he ain't gonna be able to get out. And we'll all be standing there right beside him.

Steps of success according to Trump: Step 1: Create an unnecessary problem that has the potential to cause chaos Step 2: Work yourself to the brink of said chaos, terrifying the entire world in the process Step 3: TACO right before chaos is unleashed Step 4: Announce complete and total victory while rejoicing in the fanfare of your brainless supporters Step 5: Repeat

Munger: "I think Berkshire is sort of a temple of rationality. What's really admired around Berkshire is somebody who sees it the way it is. Wouldn't you agree with that Warren? More than anything, more than energy, more than..." Buffett: "You better see it the way it is."

Why are all you Trumpies so ferociously obsessed with trans people? I feel like I could count on two hands how many I've seen in my entire life. I'm starting to realize that much of human behavior is actually inverse to itself: extreme arrogance masking insecurity, anger veiling fear, that sort of thing. Why then are some of you so fixated on trans people? Is there something you would like to share with the class @cubsfan?

In Trump world, any level of taxation is basically socialism at the same time that spending $10 trillion on defense is essential and "You better not touch my Social Security money."

Can I please see this propaganda?

Hmmm... let me meet somewhere in the middle with the Trump bunch. I personally don't like Platner and think it's kind of crazy that the Democrats are championing someone who had a totenkopf tattoo and espouses antisemitic content. Now then, is it crazy that I also don't approve of having a felon as our president? How about not supporting a man who instigated his followers into storming the U.S. Capitol building? Am I crazy for thinking that Trump blowing out budget deficits isn't good for the long-term health of our economy? Here I go trying to bang my head against the wall again.

Trying to argue with Trump supporters is like deciding to slam your head repeatedly into a brick wall. The wall of course never budges, and all you get at the end is a horrible headache.

It's too bad they decided to attack us earlier this year. It's also been hard working with them considering they withdrew from the JCPOA.

I felt some real sexual tension between Donald and Dana. I'm surprised they weren't holding hands as they walked out. I even thought they might kiss there at the end.

If anything, all of this takes time. I'm certain nothing will happen until we're peering into the abyss. There will be opportunities.

And you're right, they will print. But it's not that simple. The Federal Reserve can't fix a massive credit crisis just by providing liquidity to the Treasury market. Many of the systemic problems during times of extreme stress require fiscal policy, an act of Congress. The Federal Reserve is simply a lender of last resort; they legally can't spend money. Have you taken a good look at our Congress lately? I've been more impressed by the intellectual display of chimps at my local zoo. A fiscal crisis would leave everyone with nothing but bad options. I do not expect good judgment to come from our current government.

Money in our economy is primarily credit. When there is a run on the system, and the means for originating credit come to a halt, deflation is the only outcome due to the money supply rapidly shrinking. 2008 and 2020 were both instances of the Federal Reserve and Treasury racing against deflation in order to stave off collapse of the financial system.

We made a deal with Iran. Whoopee fucking ding dong.

Every week when I go through Value Line, I see dogshit like this, page after page after page. Buy it up folks.